As he walked he kicked and punched at the cool air before him, yelling at someone who was not present. The yells grew louder as he came closer. He seemed so angry, but there was no one to be angry with. While I saw no one for him to hit or scream at, he did.

I started to walk towards him and slowly extended my hand, “Hey brother, I’m Scott. How are you?” He quieted his temper and quit throwing punches. When he shook my hand his palms were rougher than sandpaper. “How old are you,” I inquired. He looked to the side, “29… 29 going on 30.” I don’t know that he even knows his true age, but I would guess it was not 29.

“Would you like a blanket and some food,” I asked him. He responded, “You got a blanket?” I then asked him to follow me to my truck. He stood as I searched out a new blanket that he could carry with him. I then handed him a bag of food.

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982), a writer who often wrote about his own battles with schizophrenia, once wrote “What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe it's as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can't explain his to us, and we can't explain ours to him. The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently, there occurs a breakdown in communication ... and there is the real illness.”